Hemodialysis in the rat animal model

I found some good descriptions of hemodialysis experiments using rats. They all use a method possibly first described by (Rockel et al., 1978).
(Galons, Trouard, Gmitro, & Lien, 1996) at U of Arizona used nephrectomized male Spraque-Dawley rats (Holtzmann Co., Madison, WI) weighing ~300 g to study the effects of hemodialysis on the apparent diffusion coefficient of brain water. The surface area of their dialyzer was 150 cm². Hemodialysis was performed with a bicarbonate buffered bath as described by (Silver, DeSimone, Smith, & Sterns, 1992) at U of Rochester. Silver describes in general the bilateral nephrectomy under pentobarbital anesthesia. Rats in groups receiving dialysis had femoral venous and arterial lines (PE 50)^* inserted and placed subcutaneously. They used a cuprophane dialyzer (Baxter Corporation, Deerfield, IL, USA) with a surface area of 150 cm². Rats were given 4 mL of blood from non uremic rats before being dialyzed. This was the extracorporeal volume of the dialyzer circuit.
Silver’s hemodialysis was based on that of (Rockel et al., 1978).

(Yorimitsu et al., 2012) has a good description of the setup. Rats were fed adenine to bring about renal failure. Access to the circulatory system was via the femoral artery/vein. The procedure is the same as the above papers.
They were able to dialyze at 1 mL/min (5.0 mL/min dialysate flow rate). Rats under going 1.5 mL/min dialysis died, so that’s not good. Dialysis was performed for 120 min. Blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and creatinine levels are compared before and after. Both show some lowering (see calculations below).
The purpose of their experiments was to develop a good hemodialysis for the rat animal model of renal failure. This manuscript is a good template for an animal test paper.

Pre HD BUN 13.7 mg/dL, Post HD BUN 10.2 mg/dL

Water Volume of a 600 g rat, ~420 mL

Time of diallysis, 120 minutes

Membrane surface area, A = 4.67e-3 m²

KT/V = ln(13.7/10.2) = 0.295

K = 0.295*420 mL /120 min =  1 mL/min

KA = 214 mL/min/m²

^* I have no idea what PE 50 is.

The Galon, Silver, and Yorimitsu papers are available on this NRG Library page.

Rockel, A., Brand, A., Stanjek, A., Hevendehl, G., Heidland, A., Hoeltzenbein, J., et al. (1978). Haemodialysis in rats. Res Exp Med (Berl), 172(2), 187-191.
Silver, S. M., DeSimone, J. A., Jr., Smith, D. A., & Sterns, R. H. (1992). Dialysis disequilibrium syndrome (DDS) in the rat: role of the “reverse urea effect”. Kidney Int, 42(1), 161-166.
Galons, J. P., Trouard, T., Gmitro, A. F., & Lien, Y. H. (1996). Hemodialysis increases apparent diffusion coefficient of brain water in nephrectomized rats measured by isotropic diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging. J Clin Invest, 98(3), 750-755.
Yorimitsu, D., Satoh, M., Koremoto, M., Haruna, Y., Nagasu, H., Kuwabara, A., et al. (2012). Establishment of a blood purification system for renal failure rats using small-size dialyzer membranes. Ther Apher Dial, 16(6), 566-572.